Portable personal media players and other media device products are reaching the market. These products deliver audio, video, email, web surfing, games, photography, GPS, communication, and other functions. As personal media devices become smaller, the flat panel displays integral to their surfaces become small and more difficult to use. Eyewear displays can solve the problems of the small display and obviate the need for a video display mounted on board the media device. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,886,822 and 6,879,443.
Even with eyewear displays, the user may still be faced with a range of cables, connectors, battery chargers, and interfaces which require plug converters and other circuits and hardware necessary so that non-integral or remote displays and other accessories can be used with a wide range of media device products. Since these media devices are envisioned for on-the-go applications, carrying a lot of gear interferes with the portability of both the eyewear displays and the media devices. What is needed is a simplified way to connect media devices and eyewear, without cumbersome gear. This simplification should also reduce the number of cables and connectors in the system. It is an object of this invention to simplify interconnection of a range of media devices with a range of eyewear displays and accessories.
A second issue related to portable media devices is miniaturization. Once the media device no longer requires an integral video display, its size is no longer dominated by the display. Therefore, a further objective of this invention is the use of an eyewear display to miniaturize a range of media products. This miniaturization is made possible by a high level of integration of the eyewear display drive electronics and the media device electronics. The result of simplified electronics is not only a smaller electronic printed circuit board size, but also lower power consumption, meaning that the size of the battery may be reduced, leading to cost reduction, and a further size reduction in the overall package. Thus this invention includes a new type of media device that has been designed for simplified integration with display eyewear.